A Critical Age in the University World: Accumulated Heritage versus Modern Imperatives

My first point is that the university (or what I shall later refer to as higher education) has moved from a guild-like status on the periphery of society, serving the learned professions and the higher levels of the civil service with students drawn from the more advantaged elements of society, to a more central position. This more central position involves service to many more professions, occupations and vocations-potentially to perhaps one quarter or more of the total labour force, and also potentially to members of all elements of the population. The wealth of nations now depends on the performance of higher education as never before, through its contributions to building human capital and accumulated knowledge; and so does the military competition among the great powers-potentially, quite literally, a matter of life and death. The political health of nations also now depends, as never before, on higher education to help create greater opportunity throughout the population, to help break down hereditary class lines. For these and other reasons, higher education has become too important to too many elements of society and to too many people for anyone to leave it alone. No longer are there any ivory towers surrounded by their moats. This may be very regrettable to some. It is also very true. The three greatest forces I see at work in this transformation are (i) the demand for greater opportunity in the polity; (ii) the demand for higher competence in each advanced economy now marked by greater competition among nations; and (iii) the demand for facilities for life-long learning among awakened populations. The third point is more than an extension of the first. It reflects greater opportunity but also the changing tastes of people as civilisation advances. The more education they have, the more they want. These are the greatest of the modern imperatives for higher education. None of these demands is new in history but they are new in their intensified impact upon higher education and on a world-wide basis, beginning about 1960. The demand for greater opportunity, in particular, comes as a very late assault on the fortresses of the